Musings & Rants by Tim Byrd

Best Buyer Beware (Best Buy’s Fraudulent Sales Techniques)

The Consumerist investigated Best Buy’s use of “optimization” to bait and switch customers buying computers:

Over the past year, a number of you have been telling us that, due to “pre-optimization” of computers, it’s difficult — sometimes impossible — to walk into a Best Buy and leave with the advertised deal (in effect, you would be paying a $39.99 surcharge over the computer’s advertised price). We decided to look into your complaints. We sent the Consumer Reports secret shoppers to 18 different Best Buys in 11 states, and one of our shoppers was denied the price advertised for a specific model because only pre-optimized computers were available. When the Consumer Reports engineers compared three “optimized” computers to ones with default factory settings, there was no performance improvement. In one case, an optimized laptop actually performed 32% worse than the factory model.

So keep this in mind if you buy anything at Best Buy. The full article is here.

TIM BYRD

The author of the Doc Wilde adventure series, Tim is often barefoot, prone to irony, and interested in everything. He has been a soldier, game designer, independent filmmaker, and outdoor guide. He knows how to tie a tie, but doesn't care to.